Worry Is A Way To Pretend You Have Knowledge
Shovel your way out of the shit!
My relationship with the Catholic church is a complicated one. (Is any current or former Catholic’s relationship not?)
I don’t recall ever being a fervent believer in the Resurrection, the Immaculate Conception, or any of the other -ions, though I did give it a sincere effort when I was younger. Mostly I understood the stories as allegories, or products of their time, necessary tests of a willingness to commit to something called faith, carried across millennia.
Regardless of my level of buy-in during any particular year, I do recall a persistent feeling of peace, a calm sense of security within the walls of my childhood church, regardless of how zoned out or tuned in I was during the proceedings. The warm light and sonorous voices certainly played a part, but I do truly believe that some of it was a physical manifestation of the sincere prayers and trust in the possibility of better things—in this world or the next—that pervaded the place.
The more you know, the harder it can be to hang on to that warmth and peace. Take the recent discoveries in Canada.
These days if there’s anything that ties me to an identity within the church at all, it’s my fervent, and perhaps mildly ignorant and contradictory, support for the Irish nationalist cause, which is inextricable from the Catholic church—culturally, politically, you name it. (Ironically, you may have seen in the news recently that some bishops wanted to deny the sacrament of communion to Joe Biden, the closest thing to an Irish nationalist we’ve had in the White House, on the basis of his support for abortion. That they have made no such calls to deny communion to other presidents whose body counts approach the millions should tell you all you need to know about that particular drama.)
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about all of this because over the weekend I had occasion to attend a Catholic mass—namely, the baptism of my godson, during which I planned to happily put aside my moral and intellectual struggles for an hour. I’d do anything for that kid.
Despite my mixed feelings, and the distractions of my adorable niece and nephew in the pew ahead of me, I found myself listening intently to the sermon. During the homily we were asked to pray to God for an end to injustice, to oppression, to unkindness and prejudice. Good things to wish an end to, undoubtedly. But the priest did not indicate that any of those things have agents behind them, actors carrying them out, or material underpinnings driving them. In the context of our asked-for prayer, these nouns were simply abstractions—manifestations of Evil that required conquering in our hearts.
Knowing as I did the political predilections of the area in which we sat and stood and knelt, I started to stew a little bit. I wondered how much the sermon was registering with the people surrounding me, many of whom I felt were surely complicit in the general worsening of things—did they even notice the contradictions? Were they not carrying out, or at least voting for, those same injustices, prejudices, and unkindnesses that they murmured for an end to?
These hypocrisies are certainly not new territory and I apologize for covering such well-trod ground. At my most ungenerous I feel like Dr. Amp.
These fucks!
But of course, righteousness is easy. I am trying to give into the impulse less. Not because I don’t think I’m right—I do—but because with each passing week I become more aware that my rightness, in and of itself, doesn’t help anyone. (It certainly doesn’t help my blood pressure.)
My friend Brian, who puts out a very good newsletter about art, vegan cooking, architecture, poetry, and more, wrote about something yesterday that seems related to all this.
this weekend and summer in general has also been bringing up my current least-favorite cyclical yearly summer trend: an endless stream of charts (mostly swooping dramatically up or dramatically down at the end), maps (mostly colored various shades of orange and burnt red) and “This. Is. Not. Normal.” style posts, headlines, ledes, and captions. it was 115 degrees in portland oregon today. let that sink in. the pacific northwest. 115 degrees. this is not normal. climate change is here. are you convinced yet. still think climate change is fake? 115 degrees. wow. i mean. just. let that sink in.
i hate this shit.
everyone who feels inclined to do anything about climate change already knows how bad it is. for the life of me i do not understand the appeal of this constant stream of doom / collapse porn. nobody else is going to be convinced by it at this point - or nobody meaningful, anyway. the battle lines are clear and people have chosen sides. more writing is not going to help. and frankly, it’s fucking depressing and discouraging.
It is almost…gleeful. Decadent, even, the way I see people online coping with climate disaster by making sure everyone knows that they know just how bad it is. There’s a quote from Rebecca Solnit that I think sums up this impulse well.
This is just another flavor righteousness, this disaster porn. Brian continues:
and i have to say, if you’re that convinced we’re all fucked, go do mushrooms in the woods for gods sake. go get into base jumping. go grill in your backyard. quit straddling the coward’s line between “there’s still hope” and “we’re all doomed” — get out of the boat and enjoy the rest of your life and shut the fuck up, or find a bench and start rowing.
The thing about the rant from Dr. Amp I linked above is that nothing he’s saying is particularly incorrect. In fact most of it is spot on. But as is so often the case, the only solution he can think to offer is an individual commercial one: a literal gold-painted shovel so you can “SHOVEL YOUR WAY OUT OF THE SHIT!” A task that needs doing, no doubt. But he—like all who give wholly over to righteousness and the policing of individual behaviors and attitudes—fails to realize that the shovel needs to be a whole lot bigger, and all of us need to be using the handle at once, if anything is to ever improve. There’s certainly room for prayer alongside that shovel, too, provided we don’t start mistaking the one for the other.
(Uh oh. Is even this me giving into righteousness? Shit.)
Thanks, as always, for reading. I’ll talk to you next week.
-Chuck
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